Detroit Zoo may ask for tax to help fund operations

June 10, 2007|SBT 24/7 Staff Report

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) -- The Detroit Zoo may ask voters in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties next year to approve a regional property tax to help fund its operations. In exchange for the 0.1-mill property tax, schoolchildren in those counties could get free field trips, Zoo Director Ron Kagan said. Details of the property tax proposal still are being formulated. The tax could complete the transition from management by Detroit to management by the nonprofit Detroit Zoological Society. The city turned over zoo management to the society last year in a cost-cutting move. "We were given an opportunity to be independent," Kagan told the Detroit Free Press for a Sunday story. "We know that we need a mechanism of public support." Since then, zoo has streamlined operations and eliminated about 35 of 235 employees, said Gail Warden, the zoo society's chairman. Getting residents to approve a tax for the zoo may not be easy. In 2000 and 2002, voters rejected taxes that would have funded attractions including the zoo and the Detroit Science Center. Kagan said he hopes to meet with political leaders, community groups and others to spell out the plan once it is finalized. The tax would cost the owner of a home with a taxable value of $100,000 about $10 per year and bring in $10 million to a zoo that costs about $24 million annually to run. Taxable value is half or less of a home's market value.